Towards a cost-effective design of a meat supply chain: a multi-criteria optimization model

This paper presents a developed multi-criteria optimization model aiming to obtain a cost-effective design for a meat supply chain network with respect to minimization of total implementation and operational cost, and maximization of customer satisfaction and product quality. Moreover, the aim of this work intends to solve the facility location-allocation problem along with the quantities of products transported between facilities. Two solution approaches were employed to obtain two sets of Pareto solutions and a decision-making algorithm was developed to select the superior solution approach in terms of each of values of the three criteria, respectively. A case study was applied to examine the applicability of the developed model and the performance of the proposed solution approaches. Results are offered and discussed in order to determine a trade-off solution among the considered criteria for solving the meat supply chain network design problem. The developed tri-criteria optimization model can be used as an aided tool by decision makers for designing and optimizing food supply chain networks.